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I began to feel a little dizzy, and the voices were disorienting, pulling my attention in every direction. I sat back and crossed my legs, pressing against my temples and trying to ground myself.
Then my stomach began to burn and ache, just like it had the night Vento had brought the gobbelin. I moved to stumble to my feet, but the mist pressed in all around me, the voices still hissing at me to remember.
“What am I supposed to remember?” I growled, wrapping my arms around my middle as pain seared through me.
I clawed at the bottom of my tunic, untucking it from my pants to reach my bare skin, which felt like it was on fire. I could see the icy blue glow pulsing through my body. The gash had widened, and the raw area was now the same shape and size as theBook of IceI’d carried there in the first Trial. As I rubbed at the edges of the burning skin, trying to soothe it, my fingernails caught on something.
Paper.
Leather?
Holyfuck.
My mind churned as much as my guts as I painstakingly peeled a sort of ghost book away from my flesh, leaving a raw, throbbing wound in my abdomen.
Gritting my teeth against the burning, icy pain, I looked down at the book, keeping my eyes carefully away from the angry gash in my skin. The book wasn’t quite solid, like seeing Nicolas in the mist, but it was a different color than the real book. The leather cover was a pure, icy white, the pages streaked with blue and filled with smudged black writing.
Hands shaking, I tried to turn the pages, but my fingers slipped right through them like they were only fog.
Remember to remember...the mist hissed at me, and my eyes squeezed shut against the throbbing ache in my stomach.
As soon as the darkness covered my eyelids, I could see the book more clearly, as if I really were looking at a memory instead of the weightless shape in my hands. Pulling at memories of being in school, reading books like this, I imagined myself opening the cover, thumbing through the pages.
In my mind’s eye, the book fell open across my lap, the pages rifling on their own until finally stopping. Still listening to the echo of the mist, I told myself to remember what was on the page.
I knew it was ridiculous.
I hadn’t read the spells in theBook of Icewhen I’d retrieved it from the frozen lake. I certainly hadn’t memorized them as I’d rushed through the Sans Cesse Mountains back to Saori Sang. There hadn’t been time.
But behind my closed eyelids, I couldreadthis spell now. And judging from the tingle in my fingertips, my ice magic was remembering exactly how the spell worked.
Feeling like I was in a trance, I closed the imaginary book and opened my eyes to find that the icy one had vanished.
The gash on my stomach was healed already, though the edges of the wound were still red and tender. I didn’t know what the hell had happened, or how, but I suddenly knew a way to use my ice magic that I’d never known before.
I’d... remembered it. Not from my own memory, but from the thousands of vampires in the mist, connecting with me across time and space. I’d accessed my ancestors’ memories. The ancient magic was mine, if only for a single spell. My heart soared as I steadied my body.
I didn’t see Nicolas again, but I felt him near me as I whispered the ancient language, running my hands over my hair, my face, down my neck and body, all the way to my toes.
Looking down at myself, I held my hands up in the moonlight and marveled at what my magic had done. My whole body was encased in ice, but I wasn’t frozen. Instead, the sheet of ice moved with me, bending and crackling as I flexed, but never shattering.
“Ice armor,” I murmured, the excitement surging in my chest as I remembered the name for this.
Nic’s words made sense now. I didn’t have to know every poisonous plant or animal that could be hiding in that tunnel. Encased in this armor, I was simply safe from them all.
Of course, spells didn’t last forever, and I certainly wasn’t going to waste this chance to find my men. Scrambling forward, I ducked into the mouth of the cave, trusting Nicolas and my own instincts to get me through this.
The tunnel curved away from its opening in an S shape, blocking any light from either end. I felt vines tugging at my hands and ankles, and something scurried across my hands, though I could only feel the echo of its tapping claws through the sheath of ice I was wearing. It was really only a few minutes of crawling before I emerged, blinking around me.
I was definitely in Kas’s section, and not a minute too soon, as my ice armor had started to chip and melt away, leaving my magic feeling drained.
Adrenaline was flooding my system from the thrill of what had just happened - not to mention the pain - but all I could think of was finding my men and gorging myself on their blood, refilling my strength and magic.
But I was worried if I went any farther and turned the next corner, the mist would kick in and deliver me right back to Jillian and Darnell. So I stayed where I was and called up my mental connection with Kas, waking him up and giving him a solid idea of where I was and a brief idea of how I’d gotten here.
Fucking hell, princess - that’s just around the corner. Stay right there, and I’ll come to you.
It was less than three minutes before Kas came jogging around a rocky wall, looking like a goddamn dream. I tackled him, and we tumbled to the ground, grinning.
